IN MEMORIAM

Date of publication: 28. 8. 2016
News

PROF. DR. JAMES WATSON CRONIN (Sep. 29, 1931 - Aug. 25, 2016)

Photo: University of Chicago News Office
Photo: University of Chicago News Office

Professor James W. Cronin, a pioneering scientist, a Nobel laureate and honorary doctor of the University of Nova Gorica died Aug. 25 at the age of 84.

James W. Cronin obtained his doctoral degree at the University of Chicago in 1955 as a National Science Foundation Fellow. Cronin’s research, that resulted in the Nobel Prize, involved the study of neutral kaons and led to the discovery of CP violation in 1963. Later in his career he shifted focus, becoming co-leader of the Pierre Auger Collaboration and investigating possible sources of cosmic rays at extreme energies and their properties. Upon his initiative, research teams of the University of Nova Gorica and the Jožef Stefan Institute, led by professor Danilo Zavrtanik, joined the collaboration in 1995, which gave an enormous boost to the development of a new research field of astroparticle physics in Slovenia.

Professor Cronin received honorary doctorates from l’Université Pierre et Marie Curie, University of Leeds, Université de Franche Conte, University of Nova Gorica, University of Nebraska and the University of Santiago de Compostela and the Colorado School of Mines. In addition to his numerous awards and honors he and Val Fitch were awarded the Nobel Prize for physics in 1980.

Faculty and staff of the University of Nova Gorica extend our most sincere condolences to his wife and his family.

University of Chicago News Office: "https://news.uchicago.edu/article/2016/08/27/james-w-cronin-nobel-laureate-and-pioneering-physicist-1931-2016"

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